Folks, I suck at social media and I would like to follow you

msstice

msstice

200 words a day = 1 novel/year
Supporter
Joined
Mar 27, 2020
Messages
919
Mostly I just like writing and my second fav is to hang out on the chrons and help people out or get help. But I guess I should be "sociable".

Honestly, I don't know how important a social media presence is, but I gather it is. Important that is.

I have a twitter account: https://twitter.com/stice_s and a facebook author page: Log in or sign up to view and I blog here: The Black Deep

If you all have social media accounts author pages and blogs, I'd like to follow you. Please post them here and I'll follow you.

Sincerely
- The Virtual Wall Flower
 
I certainly waste a lot of time on social media (which is actually not much time at all in the grand scheme) But I have followed you on Twitter nonetheless ;)
 
Longer things because I'm bored

- It's not essential.

- It can be important, but at the highest levels of commercial writing it's a drop in the ocean; at the lower levels, it can be the difference between going nowhere and doing quite well

- Getting anywhere depends on being good at it

- Being good at it mostly depends on a willingness to be social and create a small network of friends who listen and promote when you have stuff to say, rather than constant promotion.

- The above depends on liking it. If you don't like it, you probably won't do well.

And that's it.
 
I second what Jo says. She seems to use social media effectively for her books.

I followed you with my @fergussonfamily account (which is mainly pictures of me standing in rivers, politics, genealogy) and already contains many SFFChrons members in my followers, but I also have another account with currently 33k followers @greengympenge (which is gardening as exercise, health and environmental stuff). I will followback with both accounts.

Not wanting to reinvent the wheel here, we have had these discussions before and this is what I said about it then:

social media to advertise

What are some techniques you can use for social media to publish your work.
www.sffchronicles.com www.sffchronicles.com

Basically you need really high numbers of followers to be effective at promoting anything, otherwise you are shouting into space, and doing that takes years of work to achieve. (The @GreenGymPenge account is 8 years old with Tweets daily.) Brian also calculated that only an average of 2% of followers will actually be active, See here:

Twitter: a profound waste of time for marketing

All my analytics point to Twitter profiles having only 2% active followers. The figure lies between 1-3%, with 2% as a general average. That means someone with 1,000 followers has only around 20-30 who are actively reading their Tweets. Someone with 10,000 followers can expect a couple of...
www.sffchronicles.com www.sffchronicles.com

Some Chronners did try to get something going using the #SFFChrons hashtag on a few occasions. See here:

#SFFChrons

okay, following on from Mouse's thread on twitter and thinking about how we can use it more effectively across the Chrons active writers/publishers/self-publishers whoever. I'm suggesting the above gets used on tweets that are promoting something new, be it cover reveals, shorts, new books...
www.sffchronicles.com www.sffchronicles.com

and here:


I'm not sure how effective that was. We got the hashtag in 290 tweets per hour, but it still didn't "trend" as a Twitter topic and so the only people who read the tweets were those who were already taking part.

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are all different beasts. I don't really do the others, but generally on Facebook, people will read all your posts (like on Chrons). They don't do that on Twitter. Also, on Facebook you can set up pages and groups that may be more effective, but I couldn't say.
 
I use twitter a little, but trying to promote there I find heavy going - probably because I loathe the whole promotion process. I have a facebook account that is incredibly out of date because I find facebook itself really irritating.

As @Jo Zebedee and @The Big Peat say, if you don't like doing it, then it's of limited value.

I've done a follow on twitter and your blog. Good luck! :rolleyes:
 
I gave up on Twitter. I found it depressing and cyclic. I got tired of the continual anger, even when I thought the angry people had a point.
 
Toby Frost said:
I gave up on Twitter. I found it depressing and cyclic. I got tired of the continual anger, even when I thought the angry people had a point.
Click to expand...
There is a lot of anger, but then there is a lot wrong with the world today.

I can't possibly read all the Tweets from everyone I follow, nor would I ever want to. I make and use subject Lists and look at those. I only add people who are genuinely interesting and that I want to read. Of course, that doesn't stop a few flame wars getting through.

One good thing is that I appreciate SFF Chronicles more for being so peaceful, calm and genuinely friendly.
 
I see a lot of comments about the anger, but I find Twitter gives you far more robust control of your timeline and what is served you. Certainly it's got better ethics than anything Zuckerberg owns. Thing is, the horror community is far more supportive of each other than any other genre. It's common that horror aficionados have spent time in life being othered one way or another and so there is an inherent support there.

One thing I would advise against strongly is starting any of these mind-numbingly redundant writer's lifts (#writerslifts). I insta-block (or mute) anyone who does that. It is pointless.

I'd recommend setting up one for publishing/writing etc and one for personal use though. You can do this easily with one email address - it's not seen as sock-puppeting

Twitter only 'works' if you interact with your followers and people you follow. That doesn't necessarily mean generating nonsense content just to get higher ratios, but to do what we do here; be part of a community, post throughful or fun replies, and wait. It becomes pretty clear when a tweet is bait for a follow or marketing. I've had nice conversations in PM and on threads with some of my favourite authors and even Ellen Datlow - not just about their horror, but about anything from Trump to COVID.
 
The thoughtful discussion here and the kindness I can see is why I like chrons and like being on it. It feels like I'm talking to real people and can do it repeatedly, and I've not really had that on Twitter. Thank you all and I will stick with chrons because that's what I feel comes naturally to me.
 
I joined the social media sites for the first time last year to try get some stories out and about ...I beeped/ followed you @Jo Zebedee at one stage. Reckon they are just part of life now anyway (was ranted at by two pensioners for following health department guidelines in the butchers last week -they even cited some scientific gobbeldygook ...that sorta thing'd never have happened before social media!). The websites are a harmless waste of time for me, and there is a ton of Sci-Fi/ fantasy material to be had too. Ended up writing a thing where the social media corporations were like the aliens from V -I made a pig's ear of the writing, but the lad in the clip below did a good job of being simultaneously goofy and creepy. Reads like you've given up on the idea @msstice , but good luck if ya take it on.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
Jubal_Harshaw 1970s. Modern folks find remains of Mu and Atlantis (survivors), using some sort of statuette Book Search 2
Michael Colton Character Name Question for UK Folks Writing Discussion 53
Glisterspeck An emotional thesaurus to help us emotionally detached folks. Writing Resources 4
AE35Unit Free e-book giveaway folks! Book Discussion 0
U Hi Folks Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! George R R Martin 3

Similar threads


Back
Top